Cascade Microtech, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCD)

Cascade Microtech is a leading company in the design, development and manufacture of advanced wafer probing solutions for the electrical measurement and test of semiconductor integrated circuits and chips. Its products are used to perform testing of chips while in wafer form, or wafer probing, in both engineering and production test environments. The company's products include engineering probe stations, analytical probes, production probe cards, application software and services.

The company reported record revenue of $84.9 million, up 16% over last year for the year 2006. The Production Probe division was one of the major contributors to the revenue and is growing at a rapid pace, which can be shown by its recent performance where it grew to $16.9 million, up 68% over last year. It is expected that the increasing demand for high speed and high density cards will continue to drive high growth rates for this division in 2007 and 2008 as well. Adding to this the company booked record largest probe card order from a European supplier of cell phone components which will begin shipping in Q2 2007, ensuring the revenue supply throughout 2007.

Cascade is an industry leader in the growing market for engineering and process development wafer probing equipment. The company has a high demand for its high-performance production probe applications in the semiconductor test industry giving it substantial growth opportunities in this market. The company has more than 800 customers, including all of the top 20 chipmakers to boost its revenue in the coming years. It is expected that Cascade’s shares to move higher as it maintains its research and development probe position creating entry barriers for its competitors and executes in the production probe card market.